December 10, 2011

ROOTING OUT BOGUS SCHOLARSHIP: “Some years ago, I noticed several authors making the assertion that indentured servants, and in one instance even women and the propertyless, were routinely barred from owning guns in the Colonies and in the early Republic. All those assertions turned out to rely on Michael Bellesiles’ pre–Arming America work that made such an assertion, especially Gun Laws in Early America: The Regulation of Firearms Ownership, 1607–1794, 16 Law & Hist. Rev. 567, 574, 576 (1998).” Reliance on Bellesiles is scholarly malpractice.